11.26.2010

A Slight Clarification

After reading my post from yesterday, Christian looked at me and said, "Your belly is full of growing baby?" And that might sound like a strange thing for my husband to say, considering we've known I was pregnant since the end of August, so let me explain.

If you already understand the difference between count nouns and mass nouns, you can skip this paragraph. If you don't, pay attention, because this is important. Count nouns refer to things that can be divided into individual, countable units, like apples or cars. Mass nouns refer to things that can't be counted, because they aren't viewed as individual units; think of as milk or sand. So as a quick example, money, in its most common usage, is mass noun, while dollar is a count noun.

When I posted yesterday that my belly is "round and full of growing baby," I was using "baby" as a mass noun, referring to all of the developing matter inside of me. I wasn't talking about a single entity of baby, because there isn't just one in there.

I'm Mary, and this is my blog where I write about my life and other exciting things. I live in North Carolina with my husband and four kiddos: Maggie Elaine, Captain Max, Lucy Eleanore, and Leo James. Read more...